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November Rain
General Info. Year: 1992 Album: Use Your Illusion I Released: June 2, 1992 Length: 8:57 Writer(s): Axl Rose About "November Rain" is a power ballad by American rock band Guns N' Roses, written by lead singer Axl Rose and released as a single in June 1992. It appears on the album Use Your Illusion I. It features a sweeping orchestral backing and is one of Guns N' Roses' longest songs. "November Rain" peaked at number 3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, making it the longest song in history to enter the top ten of that chart. Music Video The narrative quality of the music video accentuated the epic nature of the song. The video (directed by Andrew "Andy" Morahan)9 portrays Rose marrying his then-girlfriend Stephanie Seymour, intercut with a live performance in a theater. Particularly, it can be noted for its large budget (about $1 million, including Seymour's dress) and sweeping cinematography, which won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Cinematography. It is one of the most expensive music videos ever. Slash is prominently featured in some of the video's most memorable scenes, including a sequence of helicopter shots swooping around him as he plays the first guitar solo and a later scene where he plays the third solo while standing on Rose's piano onstage. Casting coordinator Mark Roberton observed; "the camera-man had a lot of responsibility, as the crane-cam was so close to Slash, precariously stood atop a piano that was near the stage edge. One wrong twitch and the guitarist would've had a long drop!" The video for "November Rain" uses the full version of the song as opposed to an abridged version. The Orpheum Theater, a theater in downtown Los Angeles was acquired for an evening shoot that went several hours into the night, and, unlike usual common practice, they did not mime for any of the takes. Between several differing versions of "November Rain", while the cameras on cranes that swooped close to Slash's frets were reviewed and set up for the next shot – the band entertained the 1,500 extras by playing more of their songs. For the outside shots of Slash while he is playing the first solo, Rose had originally envisioned it taking place in a "cool field" of sorts. However, since the video was shot in winter, there were no good-looking fields around, and eventually the band decided to use a church in New Mexico. Coincidentally, this was the same church used in the movie Silverado. Brad Hartmaier was the Production Designer for the New Mexico sequences at the Silverado Movie Ranch. Working from sketches he made while sitting in the hotel bar, Hartmaier managed to build and dress two church sets with the help of local crews. The exterior church set consisted of a dilapidated old building that was trucked out to the middle of a large prairie and turned into the prominent church in the video. Multiple crews worked for 24 hours straight building the main church and a duplicate interior church set complete with fly away walls, hand made cathedral windows and decorations befitting the southwestern region where it was shot. Hartmaier was in the church with a walkie-talkie with Slash as a helicopter circled above for the big shot. Slash asked him what he did and he replied, "I'm the production designer, "slash" art director slash prop man, slash painter, slash mad scientist. Slash quickly replied with a chuckle...'Ha ha, I'm just Slash.'" Hartmaier later said of working on the video, "It was the best experience of my life." Nigel Phelps was the original production designer; Hartmaier was the art director for the Los Angeles video segments, then later became the Production Designer for the New Mexico segments after Phelps moved onto a feature film during the later part of the making of the video. The priest in the video, an Italian man named Gianantonio, was a friend of Rose. Unbeknownst to the band, the church used for the interior shots was where the priest had performed some of his last services, eight years prior to the shooting of the video. The music videos for "November Rain," "Don't Cry" and "Estranged" form an unofficial trilogy of sorts. While never specifically confirmed by the band, Rose and Del James have made statements supporting this idea. The similarity in production, style and plots can be considered evidence of this intent. As stated at the end of the video, "November Rain" is based on the short story "Without You" by Del James, available in his 1995 book The Language of Fear. The story concerns a rock star grieving over the death of his on-and-off-again girlfriend, who had committed suicide (inspired by Rose's troubled relationship with Erin Everly). While much speculation exists about how Seymour's character in the video died, the relationship between the video clip and James' short story strongly suggests that she kills herself. She appears looking visibly troubled during one shot of the wedding and during the funeral sequence, a mirror is visible, covering over half her face, a technique used by funeral homes to allow victims of head trauma to have the appearance of a full face in the event of an open casket funeral. The video remained popular throughout the rest of the decade. At the end of 1992, MTV placed "November Rain" at #1 on their top 100 videos of that year. Subsequently, it often appeared at #1 or in the top 10 of several future all-time MTV countdowns throughout the 1990s. In addition, the video was voted "Best Video Clip" in Metal Edge's 1992 Readers' Choice Awards. Category:Songs